A very relaxing read. Never before have I read a book of true life that was so well-paced and soothing. Harris writes as the river flows: gentle to rough, lucid to terse. With a great sense of personal respect to the reader, "Mississippi Solo" is ther perfect read for anyone who wants to take a vacation in the theatre of the mind. An excellent book for travellers and a must have summer read.

I bought a copy of this book after my own canoe trip down the Mississippi. It was fascinating to compare the experiences of Mr. Harris to my own.

The writing is perceptive, insightful, and entertaining. His observations of the people he met along the river, and himself, come across as very honest. He doesn't portray himself as a hero or an expert, but as the person he really is. His dedication to completing the journey is tenuous, but his appreciation for the lasting value of the experience is sincere.

His perceptions on racial issues were objective and refreshing. Although he had preconceived notions on what he might encounter, (a black man in Nordic northern Minnesota and later in the Deep South) he judged people based on how they treated him, and the vast majority of people treated him with kindness and respect.

His descriptions of the river, towns, weather and scenery are also enjoyable, and the hardships and joys are described with equal eloquence.

I was impressed how such a greenhorn of an outdoorsman would have the boldness to tackle such an adventure. My only disappointment with the book is when he skipped some parts of the river. It was his journey to make, however, and he is honest about any shortcuts he took.

In short, this is a great book. It is worth reading to experience the journey vicariously and for the writing itself. You won't be disappointed.

I found this book at a used bookstore while looking for travel books to read on vacation. What a great book! I'm fascinated by the water and enjoyed the description of his trip down the Mississipi river, but I enjoyed even more seeing how a person who wasn't an outdoorsman or even an experienced boater took on this adventure. His experience with people along the way made me feel at the end that I would enjoy sharing a campfire with him and most of the people he met. Except for the rednecks with guns that is.

Sarah Booth is an engaging heroine. She is a PI, and a bit of a slut, and you have to love her and Tinkie, as well as Madame Tomeeka, the recurring psychic; Sweetie Pie, her dog; and Reveler, her horse. Jitty, the resident ghost, is a bit of a pain, and rather tiring, but all in all, this was a well-written cozy. You can just feel the delta heat burning!! I'll be back for more.

Sarah Booth Delaney is not your typical southern belle. She started a P.I. business to hold on to her family's plantation. She is the last in the line of Delaney's with no sign of a progeny in sight much to the chagrin of a resident ghost named Jitty. Jitty is around to give Sarah Booth a hard time and to add the comic relief. Haines has created a witty, well-written novel rich in southern charm and atmosphere. The character relationships work as well as if not better than the mystery. I was a little disappointed at the conclusion of the book. If the author had not taken the easy way out at the end I would have given the book 5 stars.

Sarah Booth does it again! The "Bones" mysteries are fun, but as a former Ole Miss GDI and sipper of an occasional cocktail, the character of Sarah Booth is what makes this series my favorite. These books are like potato chips - no one can read just one.

I picked up this book to learn more about the 1960s civil rights movement and ended up with much more. Winstead's stories about her childhood and family experiences were delightful bringing to mind many long forgotten memories - her mother's housework, delicious food prepared by southern relatives, happy times with cousins, to name a few.

Winstead's accountof her family's involvement in the deaths of civil rights workers is engaging and powerful.
A wonderful first effort. Buy this book!

Back to Mississippi is suspenseful even though you already know the ending. Starting out to pass on stories of her father's south to her children, Mary Winstead found herself taking a good look at what is family loyalty when it comes up against something as shocking as murder. She uses specific personal memories of the same time period growing up in Minneapolis, a mostly white, segregated northern city, a childhood journey to Mississippi to meet her father's family, and recent research into the murders of Andrew Goodman, James Chaney, and Michael Schwerner in her father's home town in Mississippi, to delve into themes of discovery. As she describes swimming across a dark-watered lake in Mississippi as a child, worried about where the bottom was and what was down there, she is also describing swimming on the surface of family relations, worried about the depths. Most people know that civil rights workers were murdered in the south in the 1960s; some even know that the murderers have not all been tried and convicted. Winstead's book takes you through her discoveries of who Goodman, Chaney, and Schwerner were, why they felt compelled to go to Mississippi, and their murders when they arrived. Who these three young men were is important to her story because once she understands who they were and that her aunts and cousins to this day believe the three young men were "trash" she has to decide what family loyalty means. I found the book riveting and Winstead's willingness to push for family truth daring.

I found Back to Mississippi a book that was hard to put down, unexpectedly so. From the beginning of the book you know that the story to be told is of the murder of three civil rights' workers and a family's denial of those murders. At the same time this is a personal story of discovery and loss that really pulls the reader in. There are three themes in this memoir: the writer's Catholic upbringing in the north, the delightful discovery of a warm and loving family in the south, and the historical record of the bitter civil rights struggle in Mississippi. As the book progresses there there is an increasing feeling of foreboding of the connection between the family stories and the brutal murders of the civil rights' workers. This foreboding, good stories, and pertinent historical detail made this book more than worth the read. Also, it left me wanting to know more about this period and the concealment of the violence perpeptrated then.

What a delight this book is! It is a quick and enjoyable read - beautifully written. A great book club book.

I didn't know, nor realize, some of the things that go on along the Mississippi, Never really cared would be a good guess. Very interesting book on 'survival'....Locating the proper wood for the seats, and the ensuing business with the Amish, was very well written, and thoroughly educational while being amusing. Good job, Greg Chenu. Keep writing!

Rick

This book is a must read. This book will mesmerize you. The author descriptions are so clear and detailed you find yourself hanging on every word.

This is a very intelligent novel. Faulkner's style is very different from many other authors. I liked the characters' psychological description, very well done. However, for moments the novel was distracting because it was not easy to follow the story. Anyway, I found it worth reading to know Faulkner's style.

I love this guy Faulkner. I read another half chapter of The Wild Palms on the train.
Never read anything by him before.

Faulkner's characters don't sit around and examine their navel. They just Do. Yes act on their passions they Do. His characters are not beautiful people. They have scars, injuries, poverty, depraved morals, injustices, suffering upon suffering. What makes the Wild Palms beautiful is the passion of people living life right on the bone.

A married woman is planning on abandoning her husband and two kids and running away with another man. The other man asks her what about her two kids. On page 41, she answers, "I know the answer to that and I know that I cant change that answer and I dont think I can change me because the second time I ever saw you I learned what I had read in books but I never had actually believed: that love and suffering are the same thing and that the value of love is the sum of what you have to pay for it and anytime you get it cheap you have cheated yourself." No Catholic saint-mystic ever said it better. Pretty good for a crazy Protestant drunk.

You hear talk about stream-of consciousness with James Joyce and Jack Kerouac and so on. This guy Faulkner captures the way our minds think and our mouths talk more realistically than anybody.

Of Faulkner, Flannery O'Connor said, "Nobody wants his mule and wagon stalled on the same track when the Dixie Limited is roaring down."

Something about this book reminds me of the Stephen King material set in the south, the Southern-ness of it and the same kind of characters.

The omniscient author technique is frowned on in serious, modern literature. I don't knw if this aesthetic rule post-dates Faulkner, but he uses it to no ill effect. There's very little difference between when a character is speaking and Faulkner is speaking. It gives the effect of us reading the characters thoughts rather than Faulkner telling us what they are. It works perfectly.

Few to none of the characters in any of the standard, best-seller type books have any inner life. When most of the authors try it, they are quite pathetic at it. I suppose that's because the authors have no inner life themselves. Faulkner does not show us the inner life of any of his characters either. However, as Faulker presents his characters, the reader induces their inner drives from their actions. It works very, very well. Stephen King's characters are like this also.

Stephen King by the way is very steeped in American literary tradition. Essentially, he's New England gothic. He is to Nathaniel Hawthorne what the Frankenstein, the monster, is to Dr. Frankenstein. King is clothed in Hawthorne, bathed in Faulkner and inebriated with Poe. To look at the connection further, I suggest you read the short stories of Hawthorne.

Faulkner is not everybody's cup of tea, but he happens to be my favorite American writer. While the critics and all those "best books of the century" lists consistently feature "The Sound and the Fury", "Absalom, Absalom" and maybe "As I Lay Dying" as Faulkner's major works--and I too like those books--I have always thought THE WILD PALMS a gem. An underrated, forgotten gem. Perhaps it really isn't his best novel, but still it is a work of genius. I recently re-read it.

Very few novels on the world stage are composed of two completely separate stories. THE WILD PALMS consists of 1) a love story in 1938, taking place in New Orleans, Chicago, Wisconsin, Utah, San Antonio, and the Mississippi Gulf coast, and 2) the story of one man (a prisoner) and his mighty ordeal during the Mississippi River floods of 1927. Parchman State Prison in Mississippi is the sole physical point that joins the two tales, otherwise separate in time, place, class, and impulse. But Faulkner's genius is such that the reader soon understands that the theme of both stories is the same. Faulkner's novels often focus on Fate, how the individual is caught in mysterious, giant webs of 'outrageous fortune' beyond comprehension, helpless to oppose the powerful, hidden currents. The present volume is no exception. "You are born submerged in anonymous lockstep"--the main character of story #1 muses on page 54--"with the seeming anonymous myriads of your time and generation; you get out of step once, falter once, and you are trampled to death." In the first case, Wilbourne and Charlotte deviate from the usual path for love's sake, strive mightily to maintain and cherish that love, and pay an inevitable price. In the second, a convict is caught in a flood in a tiny boat when sent to save two people. He rescues one, but is swept away. He completes his mission, returning both boat and rescued woman, despite incredible hardships, only to face a certain ironic destiny. In both cases, other lives or other destinies constantly present themselves, but the protagonists refuse to alter their selected course. It is the antithesis to the Hollywood message that "you can be whatever you want in life, you just have to want it badly enough". Faulkner plumps for Destiny. A person might be, he says on page 266, "...no more than the water bug upon the surface of the pond, the plumbless and lurking depths of which he would never know..." one's only contact with such depths being when Fate is blindly accepted and played out to the bitter end. The forces of Nature, symbolized by the wild clashing of the palm fronds in the winds off the Gulf of Mexico, always outweigh the strength of human beings. The palms clash in the wind at the beginning and at the very end as well. Faulkner concludes that bearing grief, living with it, is better than suicide, better than obliterating the agonies of remembrance with a pill or bullet. Memory, however, bitter and painful, is better than nothingness. The two main characters end in prison, a most un-optimistic metaphor for life. A most powerful novel, a novel that speaks from the crocodile-haunted deeps of every person's psyche.

"What is it about Oxford [Mississippi] that produces writers?" It's a question Larry Brown, Barry Hannah and John Grisham get asked a lot. Brown says, "They always want to ask about Faulkner and what it all means, being a writer in Oxford, and where all the stories come from....

"I don't know what the answer is for anybody else, and I don't know what caused Faulkner to write," he explains, but "Most times, for any writer, I think it springs from some sort of yearning in the breast to let things out, to say something about the human condition, maybe just to simply to tell a story."

Of this, he knows plenty, for the essays in this memoir - I say "this," as opposed to "his," because I'm sure there will be many more - are stories of his life, so far; as a writer, indulgent father, and reluctant farmer.

Getting back to the question, he supposes it basically boils down to this: "Where do you get your ideas?" His response is "I believe that writers have to write what they know about. I don't think there's much choice in that." Elaborating, he says, "All [Faulkner] was doing was what every other writer does, and that is drawing upon the well of memory and experience and imagination that every writer pulls his or her material from. The things you know, the things you have seen or heard of, the things you can imagine. A writer rolls all that stuff together kind of like a taco and comes up with fiction. And I think whatever you write about, you have to know it. Concretely. Absolutely. Realistically."

Brown has an easy, honest way with language that is as smooth as Mississippi molasses. Describing the region around Tula, where he spent his teenage years, he writes, "The tall cypresses with their knees standing in water were hollow coon castles, the bark worn smooth on one side only from the steady traffic of coons scrambling up in the morning and down at night, regular as dairymen."

Reminiscing about his hunting expeditions with neighbors, he writes, "in the reserves of good memories we all hold, those times are special and seem magical to me, those nights in the woods and those days in the fields, those lessons in the wild."

Hunting is a tradition that weaves its way through Brown's family's generations, one he now shares with his sons: "They bring in ducks and squirrels and deer and doves, and I cook for them as my mother did for me, and they tell me their hunting stories, and I listen to catch their words."

In addition to letting us glimpse his personal life, Brown takes us down the long enduring road he's taken in becoming a writer. Deliberately seeking mentors in his early days as a writer, he found one when a friend lent him a copy of A Feast of Snakes by Harry Crews. He would go on to read everything by the author he could get his hands on, and in the end, he's "grateful that a writer like him walks this earth."

Brown had written five unpublished novels by 1985, "and almost a hundred short stories that had, for the most part, gone begging also." Pulling 24-hour shifts at the Oxford fire department, working odd jobs on his off-days to make ends meet, and writing in his "spare" time, Brown burned one of his novels in his backyard and worked on his rejection-slip collection.

His "apprenticeship period" would span seven years - a relative bargain, considering Crews' lasted 10 - until his first book of short stories, Facing the Music, was accepted for publication.

Brown writes with such a subtle passion. Speaking of his son, Billy Ray, whose farm is the subject of the essay chosen for the book's title, he tells, "The barn leaks. It's an old barn, pretty ragged, but he's tried to fix it up. He's mowed yards since he was twelve years old, and worked as a butcher, and hauled hay, and laid sod, and worked on a hog farm. He's saved his money, and all he's ever wanted is to be a cattleman. And it's always hurt me deep that he has had such bad luck."

Perhaps Billy Ray should take a page from his father's history and realize that with a little luck and a lot of dedication, dreams come true.

I know these essays are compiled from a few scattered sources and were written here & there for the last couple of years, but the arrangement they get in this book reads like pure Larry Brown. Not since his takes on his firefighting career have I been more pleased with one of his offerings. "Fay" was, for me, lacking in stately elegance, taking itself just a little too seriously, while "Father and Son" was achingly forced in its cardboard intensity. The thing missing in those two works was a sense of humor, and it's back in "Billy Ray's Farm" in spades. A few laughs definitely give a laid-back funkiness to the proceedings, as his observations are concrete and believable (as usual) but at the same time entertaining and lively.

I have read all of Larry Brown's books, and he works best with a smile on his face. These essays find him grinning from ear to ear, and it's about time he regained that sense of playfulness and naughtiness he seemed to have lost with bot "Fay" and "Father and Son", which were heavy-handed and too simplistic in their approach. I'm glad he seems to have come back to Earth with these essays & I can't wait for more of the same.

Larry Brown gets better with each book published. This book is quintessential Larry Brown. Simple, sparse, and completely accessible. Some people may be surprised at the lighter tones in this book of essays. It just goes to show the honesty in everything Brown writes. I have a little Larry Brown story that I think his fans would appreciate. I had the pleasure of hearing Brown read from Billy Ray's Farm at a bookshop in New York City. By mistake someone in the press printed the time of the reading incorrectly by almost two hours. Two people walked in and were devastated that they missed his reading. One of the employees told them that he was still in the back if they wanted to go talk to them. They were both a little awestruck. They're huge fans of his. After getting up the nerve they went up to them and told them how much his writing meant to them and how sorry they were to miss the reading. So what do you think he did? He took these two people into a corner of the store and read two chapters to them. Only them. It was a great thing to see and it's that quality that comes through in all of his stories. Truth and fiction. He is by far my favorite writer working today. I'm a big fan of Jim Harrison and Harry Crews as well, being from the south. If you haven't read "Fay" yet, pick it up as soon as you can. It's an amazing story. Brown does what all great writers do. He makes you forget that you're reading. Can't wait to see what's next.

I'm sorry to those who apparently loved this book, but I didn't! I thought it was awful how he strung sentences together, using commas, so that 7 sentences would become 1, making a paragraph! He was not a good author, and I definitly didn't need to hear about "The Time In the Life Of A Hormonally Charged Boy"! All in all it was a complete waste of time, so don't read it! =)

Buddy Nordan teaches at the Unveristy of Pittsburgh where i am a writing major. He came to speak to my writing class about Music of the Swap. I loved the book, and hearing him talk about how he came upon the characters and his process of writing deepend my appreciation for the stories even more. It brings back the feel of being young so vividly. I highly recommend this book!!

This is one of the best books I've ever read. It's hilarious! The reason (as one reviewer noted) that all those thoughts are strung together with comma making long sentences is because that's the way Southerners talk, and Lewis Nordan has captured the sing-song music of Southern language beautifully! Faulkner did the same thing, but Nordan is more fun to read and easier to understand. If you don't like Southern literature, pass this one by. But if you do like Southern writers, it's a must!

I thought this book was an ok reading book. I am in 8th grade and I thought it was a little young for me. It could have been better.

The Night Cry is one of the best books I have ever read!! It is about a young girl and her father. The girl's father gets a job and she has to stay alone for a week. Some unexpecting things happen when she is there. She winds up trying to rescue a small boy that was kidnapped out of his own room. I chose this book because I like horses and on the cover there was a horse. My favorite character was the Grandma because she was funny and mysterious. Everyone in town thought she was crazy. The best part was when the girl was in the barn trying to find out a way to rescue the boy. She finally busted out of the barn on the horse. I liked that part because she hadn't ridden the horse since her brother got kicked off and was killed. The only bad thing about this book is that it is very predictable. Otherwise it was very good!!

For all you readers out there,i would lik eot tell you a short summary of the book Night Cry by Phliss Reynolds Naylor.Night Cry is a book about a very bravy little girl who gets over a big fear of hers,the girl uncovers a mystery whils overcoming her fear of a horse who killed her younger brother.she is remarkablely brave.the girl also betrays a kidnapper to whitch she does not know kidnaps Jason Cory a son a of a famous actor.but this also is a tragic heroic story.I inspire all you readers out there that is into tragic mystery storys to read this book it is terrific.(at first I did not think I would like it because Iam not much of a reader but i really enjoyed it.)

This is a wonderful book. It is a storyteller's book: handcrafted by the teller to reflect HIS story.

I've read critical comments about the book and Taulbert himself that belittle either or both because they do not decry segregation or prejudice enough. Such commentators miss the major point. I don't see how anyone can read about young Taulbert and the injustices he suffered silently without being outraged and moved to change things. The Mississippi Delta apartheid was not a society Taulbert chose, but one in which he was raised. His story is about his life, not politics per se.

I recently heard Taulbert speak. He is as impressive in person as he is as a youngster in this book.

You will be richer for reading this book. I gave it 4-stars only because it is not intellectual on the surface and in that regard may not fulfill a certain challenge some of us expect in a book. Nonetheless, read this book. It is really a wonderful read that takes you to a past and a geographic spot not often visited.

All the kids were gone and I decided to grab a book and read. Well this is the perfect book for just relaxing and enjoying. The stories were so real that they just took me back to where he was.

Clifton Taulbert gives me hope and inspiration as writer -- his words are so carefully crafted, his view of the world is sincere and filled with an uplifting vision. His vivid description leads me to believe that even in the midst of the chaos and destruction we now inhabit, humanity may yet find a path to a better world. He is a truly inspiring writer; this is a truly inspiring book!

The obvious problem with this book is that it wasn't edited at all. Mr. Hendrickson attempted to write with style, grace and Faulknerian passages. Instead, we get overly grotesque physical descriptions and biased portraits of biased men.

Just when the writing starts to get to the facts of the matter, we get line after line after line after line (well you get the idea) of superfluous, novellic, beautiful, cloying prose. This is NOT a novel, Mr. Hendrickson! It was meant to be study in non-fiction.

If more of the disjointed "literary" passages were deleted, more attention was paid to the facts, and the author made a decent attempt to be unbiased, this book would be a five start book.

You write very well, Mr. Hendrickson, but please get a better editor.

Lest we forget, the civil rights era and the horrors that it wrought still echoes and reverberates within us. Now comes a poignant reminder that there still are some closets that have stored secrets and are full of old ghosts. Paul Hendrickson braves the wrath and guilt of those that may want this sordid part of our history to continue to lie fallow. This is a story of Mississippi's pained past, one that is in the forefront of efforts to eradicate and ply for a new frame of reference. The author profiles seven Mississippi sheriffs photographed while one of their number showboats with a billy club in an apparent show of glee in beating a would be students' quest to integrate the University Of Mississippi. The real story about this book as more to do with telling the truth than hiding it. and the author uses the front cover picture on the book as metaphor to illustrate what transpired during this time, and the aftermath years later.

The genesis of Hendrickson's curiosity about the picture gives rise to why he felt that there's more to tell about the men that perpetuated and fueled actions extolling the indelible image of racism for the times. His question was: Is racism a genetic thing? Could it be possible that the sons of the perpetrators are just as racist? In other words, How has it changed for the families that had to witness the shock and sorrow of their loved ones. Where did the hatred and remorse go that strengthened the viewpoints of these so-called law enforcers? The compelling point of it all is what is extracted from the sons and grandsons to feed the pages of this book. He follows the careers of the proponents up to their deaths, with the quips, quotes, and anecdotes condoning violence, and the various interviews with leading subjects of the day. He begins with a wrenching retelling of the Emmett Till lynching-seven years before James Meredith fought for and finally won admission to Ole Miss, a bloody story Hendrickson also recounts (in addition to a fascinating recent interview with Meredith himself). I found this part of the book revealing, and gave credence to the depths that Hendrickson took to solidify his research methodology. The book's final third tries to get at the legacy of Mississippi's particular brand of segregation, but tells us nothing that we don't already know. He tries to rectify quality by profiling the children of the men in the photo, and of Meredith, with sad and inconclusive results.

While Hendrickson can be intrusive in telling readers how to interpret his subjects, he repeatedly comes up with issues that are repeated in previous and later sections of the book. The electric interview material, and deftly places these men did their horrors masterfully defines events of their times, and adds yet another chapter to this period that Mississippi would rather be left dead and buried. This book and story should not be looked down on, but should be placed among other books that endeavor to give some semblance of accord in understanding mindsets of a racist enclave.

Author Paul Hendrickson has written a very well researched book on racism in Mississippi while concentrating on seven Mississippi sheriffs photographed on the campus of the University of Mississippi during the fall of 1962 when James Meredith was to be enrolled at the University. The author spends Part One of the book painting very unflattering portraits of the bigoted men in the picture. Part Two emphasizes the past and present life of James Meredith who appears to be somewhat difficult to understand. As one of Meredith's sons says in Part Three, "My father has an overwhelming need to be famous and so will do whatever he thinks will provide that and get him attention--Jesse Helms, David Duke, you name it, even if it's only for a day...I'll call it his eccentric philosophy. This is my theory. He does these things--almost as a kind of offensive strike to throw you off...For instance, supporting David Duke. Why in hell would you even support a racist like David Duke if you're James Meredith? Well, maybe he knows he's going to get all these articles and letters about that, condemning him. And that somehow gives him the energy to do what he wants to do next."
In addition to speaking to Meredith's children in Part Three, the author also visits two of the sheriffs in the picture that were alive at the time (one died shortly after) in addition to some of their children and grandchildren. A number of these offspring are working in law enforcement or in other jobs in which they must relate with fellow workers who are African Americans.
The book is slightly more than 300 pages long. Part Three may have told me a little more than I cared to know about the lives of the descendants of the bigoted sheriffs pictured on the cover of the book. I guess we can say these men were a product of their time, and their descendants have become more enlightened through the passage of time. Bigotry is a learned behavior and through the passage of the generations progress can continue to be made.